


A Walk on Anteros

by GeneralRADIX



Category: Marathon (Video Games)
Genre: Conversations, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 08:57:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12032508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeneralRADIX/pseuds/GeneralRADIX
Summary: Durandal and June Rubio go on a totally-random trip to a forest planet.





	A Walk on Anteros

**Author's Note:**

> [Some](http://general-radix.tumblr.com/post/162680545650/one-of-these-is-not-like-the-others-sorta-i) [art](http://general-radix.tumblr.com/post/162875147560/another-load-of-stuff-based-off-a-dream-i-had) featuring Durandal 'n June. Hard to believe that the latter started off as a fairly minor character...

Normally when the _Rozinante_ visited a new planet, June would be sent down with a detachment of S'pht (usually, but not always, F'tha, Mn'rhi, and R'uza) either to clear the region of excess Pfhor or scrounge around for Jjaro tech. Often both, given High Command's apparent desire for a piece of Jjaro scrap whose usage wouldn't bite the Empire in the ass. Shoot Pfhor/dig up tech, beam up, rinse and repeat. It wasn't a bad arrangement despite the dangers it posed, and June had gotten to see more of the universe in a few years than most humans would in a lifetime.

That afternoon, there were no S'pht hovering around the bridge when she walked in—just Durandal, fully armoured with a fusion pistol clipped to his belt. As soon as he spotted her, Durandal stood up from the console he'd been leaning against; June glanced around him and noticed a camera resting next to the main controls.

“About time,” Durandal muttered. “I was starting to consider warping you here directly.”

June tapped one of her pistols indignantly. “Someone's been rearranging the armoury again. You wanna know where I found the ammo for these things?”

“One of the safes?”

“A random shelf in the corner! Do we have to start posting signs explaining what goes where?”

“I have a feeling that wouldn't stop certain people.” Durandal pointed toward the view of the planet below. “Anyway—this is Anteros, third planet of the star Leda. Based on what I've gleaned from various bulletin boards, it's a common rest stop for travelers; scans indicate that seventy percent of its surface consists of temperate forest.”

Had he not told her that, June might've thought he'd taken her back to Sol Core. Aside from the shape and placement of continents, Anteros had the same deep blue oceans, bountiful green forests, and swirling white clouds as Earth.

“So what are you sending me down there for?” June asked. “Did the Jjaro leave something behind here, too?”

“Not that I can tell.”

She blinked in surprise. “Um—did the Pfhor make an unwelcome visit?”

“This is one of the few habitable planets that the Pfhor have no interest in; nothing to enslave, and no resources that they couldn't find elsewhere.”

June peered at the camera, some fancy high-tech looking model, then walked over to pick it up. “Am I supposed to just take photos, then?”

Durandal swiped it back out of her hand. “I'll be handling that; you're going to watch my back.”

He got about halfway towards the steps to the bridge's lower level before June's hand shot out and wrenched him back by the half-cape. “You're going with me?!”

“Is it really that surprising?” Durandal paused briefly to free himself from June's grip. “I've spent all our past missions holed up on the bridge, watching you scurry about like an ant.”

“And you know why? 'cuz you're not a fighter,” June said. “I have nightmares about rushing you into sickbay, sometimes; I don't wanna have to do that for real.”

Durandal looked away for a moment, expression unreadable; then he turned back, unmistakeably mildly annoyed. “You won't have to. There's no Pfhor down there, and even if there were, I'm reasonably confident that I could handle them.” He tugged at the grip of his fusion pistol, as if to remind June that it was still there. “Now can we get going?”

Whatever objections June still had sputtered out as Durandal headed down the stairs; she followed, grumbling under her breath about how intergalactic peace was easier than talking her navigator out of whatever idea he happened to fixate on this week.

–

The first thing to catch June's attention upon arrival was the massive swath of trees right in front of her and Durandal. It continued to the right, stretching all the way south relative to their position; to the left, it thinned out and scattered, leaving a wide, uneven patch of field. Somewhere nearby was a river, judging by the faint sound of running water. The grass was tall in places, but not exactly overgrown—signs of herbivorous fauna, perhaps.

Definitely a step up from Mars.

After taking in the sight, she turned to Durandal and watched him fiddle with the camera's settings. After a minute or so of him trying to force whatever he needed into compliance, without much apparent success, June asked, “Is there anything in particular you're wanting to photograph?”

“Oh, the usual,” Durandal muttered. “Landscapes, wildlife, the occasional rotting carcass.”

“If you make me look at a dead space deer, you're sleeping on the couch for a month.”

“You say that as if our couch would last that long.” Once he'd wrestled the settings into place, Durandal pointed the camera at the trees ahead and took a test shot; satisfied with that, he shut it back off and hung the strap around his neck. “Where to first?”

There wasn't else much of interest besides the forest, so that was where June began walking, careful to maintain a slow pace lest Durandal fall behind her like he tended to. She also tried very hard not to look up; the tallest of these trees were easily the length of the _Rozie_ 's bow.

Within a few minutes of walking, the two of them ran into a sea of overgrown ferns with no obvious ways around; undaunted, June strode right through them, pausing only to push leaves out her face and make sure that no tripping hazards had sneaked into her path. It didn't take long to reach the other side; June continued on, making a good visual sweep of the clearing she was now in—and stopped dead in her tracks and turned back around. No sign of Durandal.

Well, she could _hear_ him awkwardly trudging through the foliage, but it took him at least a minute to emerge from it—with a long frond in his hair that he didn't seem to notice until he'd trudged close enough for June to reach up and pluck it out.

“Problems, there?”

Durandal grumbled something unintelligible and walked past her for a better look around the clearing. Nothing too out of the ordinary, as far as June could tell: lots of grass and shrubs surrounded on almost all sides by more ferns and trees, with no obvious signs that anyone or anything had passed through earlier. Durandal took a couple of photos and followed June through the tiny gap in the trees.

Before them stretched a well-worn trail, extending as far as June could see; it led into a dense cluster of overhanging branches, then darkness.

Something about the sight reminded June of a book she'd read once about Terran nature, showcasing all the various forests and jungles that the UEG could never replicate on Mars no matter how many advanced terraforming techniques they threw at it. It was one photo in particular that came to mind—dozens of people walking through a tunnel of trees much like this one, talking amongst themselves and having what looked like a good time. Nothing about the way they interacted, or the short caption making a note of the exact location, suggested that it was anything but a casual stroll.

When June tried to imagine what it'd be like to join them, the only mental images she could conjure up were of spending hours trying to convince her family and neighbors to hang out in a blotchy field littered with half-finished lots and construction equipment. She didn't even get much out of wandering there alone; making it some kind of social outing would've been pointless.

And of course, by the time she'd moved to a more heavily-populated region of Tharsis, the violence eating away at the planet began to boil over and going for a walk with strangers held little appeal.

The two of them passed beneath the canopy into the cool shade; June looked up and saw a thousand pinpricks of light shining between the leaves. The way they danced across Durandal's form as he walked reminded her of all those time-lapse videos she'd watched of the night sky.

As they emerged on the other side, Durandal asked, “Did you ever go hiking on Mars?”

June laughed. “Only place I could've gone hiking through was the Medusa Desert, and, well—you couldn't pay me.”

Durandal raised a brow in confusion. “Why would it be named that?”

“'cuz of all those weird statues of unknown origin dotting the landscape.” When he didn't respond right away, June added, “What? You never heard of them?”

“I can't say I have.” Durandal looked away quickly. “Erm, anyway—are you enjoying things, thus far?”

Tempting though it was, June opted not to tease him. “We haven't been here that long, but I can say that it's nice not having to worry about getting shot for once. And it's a real improvement over the last few places you sent me.”

Those places were, off the top of her head: a decaying hulk of a space station that wasn't even finished, two separate desert planets (one polar, one foggy), and some kind of prehistoric swamp with floating spheres of water and giant carnivorous plants. The latter-most stuck out to June as the first planet Durandal had promised to never send her again.

He gave her a nod, muttered “That's good,” and switched the camera on again. Then he pointed to one particularly voluminous patch of ferns and asked, “Could you stand over there for a second?”

June did so, and Durandal shot a couple of photos. After he waved her back, she asked him, “Any reason you needed me to be in frame?”

“It'd be boring if the only photos I brought back were of plants, so--”

Something caused the rest of Durandal's words to catch in his throat; he stood there for a bit, staring at June in awkward silence, before hurrying off in the first direction that appeared to lead somewhere navigable. Being as slow as he was, it didn't take much effort for June to catch up to him; what she had trouble with was not smirking.

–

By the time Leda's light began to wane, June and Durandal had wandered at least a mile from their starting point; their aimless trek led them past streams, waterfalls, shrubs growing out of fallen tree trunks and the stumps they left behind, rings of moss-covered stones, and trees that could comfortably fit both June and Durandal's quarters in the circumference of their trunks. Each of these landmarks had to be photographed with June in shot, though she did once convince Durandal to hand her the camera and stand at the base of one of those giants.

Eventually, they reached the edge of a sharp drop-off overlooking a lower region of the forest; that felt as good a place as any to take a rest. June took a seat on the grass and Durandal practically collapsed next to her.

She reached over to help him massage the pain out of his thighs. “You should really consider taking up jogging.”

“Why would I want to do that?” Durandal muttered.

June gave him a couple of pokes. “Imagine trying to do all the running and jumping I normally engage in without proper exercise. I'll finish clearing out a room, then look back and find you lying on the floor in a heap and begging me to carry you.”

Durandal let out an exasperated sigh and busied himself with the camera again, lining up some shots of the verdant sea of leaves below; when that was done, he continued watching them flutter in the breeze. June quietly shared the view with him, her attention drawn to a particular tree that towered above the rest.

Some ten minutes or so later, Durandal spoke up again: “You mentioned being born above Venus, right? Do you remember what station life was like?”

June blinked. “Um—everything was beige and maroon, most areas had carpet, and you couldn't walk two feet without seeing the planetary symbol. I was four when we moved, so it's kinda hazy...”

“What about Mars?”

“My family didn't like how cramped it was on Aphrodite Station, so as soon as we touched down on Mars, we headed for the desert. First thing I saw when Mom showed me our new house was that giant cactus growing right next to it.” She tapped a finger against her chin in thought. “I had to take the bus to school 'cuz we lived too far away for me to walk; our route took us through a neighborhood full of older kids. That was how I learned about MTV, and—uh, lots of concepts I wasn't ready for yet.”

Durandal nodded. “I think I can empathize...”

“My life wasn't too eventful until I moved to Tharsis. Things were getting really bad then, and—well, in school I spent most of my free time in the library and I was good at finding information, so I thought I'd put those skills to use out in the field, so to speak. Got a job at a news agency and started taking notes; if anything on the wire or Usenet looked suspicious, I'd start digging. Managed to identify a few snipers, and thwarted a bombing. That last one, I wrote about in the paper myself—that was probably a mistake...”

Concern flit across Durandal's face. “How so?”

June frowned. “Suddenly, these black-suited guys were following me everywhere, and no matter what I did I couldn't shake them. The last thing I remember doing on Mars was packing my stuff 'cuz I was pretty sure some of them had tracked me to my apartment.” She paused to stretch her legs slightly. “It wasn't fun, but it's all behind me now, I guess. How about your time there? Was it--?”

Her words trailed off when she turned to face Durandal and saw that his head was bowed solemnly.

“My life didn't begin looking up until I met you,” he muttered. “That's all I want to say for now.”

June nodded and, after some internal debate, said to him, “Dunno if I told you before, but I'm glad I met you, too. Even if we got off to a rough start.”

Durandal didn't respond to that out loud, but did at least lift his head back up; he moved a little closer, and the two went back to watching the gentle sway of the treetops.

Then, something clicked.

“Wait a minute.”

Durandal perked up in confusion.

“You take me somewhere nice, ask questions about my past...” June stood on her knees and shifted until she was almost directly in front of Durandal. “Is this a date?”

Never before had June witnessed Durandal's face turn beet-red with such swiftness. “What?! N-no, I--”

June couldn't help but grin. “I think it is,” she said, and put an arm around Durandal's waist before he could sputter out any more denials. “We should do this again sometime.”

For a moment it felt like Durandal might try to squirm away; eventually he relaxed, perhaps accepting his fate, and rested an arm across June's shoulders. “If any of the S'pht ask what we were up to down here, it wasn't this.”

The S'pht would figure it out eventually—secrets had a way of becoming public knowledge on the _Rozinante_ no matter how tightly they were clamped down. Until then, June and Durandal watched the sky warm up, then darken as Leda gradually sank below the horizon.


End file.
